Article on the benefits of diversity
Answers
Answer:
The Benefits of Diversity
More and more, organizations are realizing that in order to be successful and recruit and retain the best employees, they must value the diversity of their employees and the clients they serve.
Whether you are a non-profit or a private corporation, learning to recognize and utilize differences can benefit your organization.
For most businesses this does not happen automatically, but through a process that involves personal and professional change.
Organizations need to define what diversity means to
them
For most organizations it involves creating an inclusive organization where the differences of all people are respected, valued and utilized towards achieving a common goal. Differences people bring to the work environment include race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, geographic background, education, economic background and thinking and communication styles.
Organizations must have clarity about the specific
benefits of diversity to their success
It’s important that employees are representative of their client base so they can understand their needs and know how to serve them. It does not mean that people of one culture, gender, age, etc, only work with those respective populations. It means that the organization as a whole is better able to relate to a larger population. This creates better working relationships, and helps avoid miscommunication based on cultural differences and ignorance about other groups. It saves time and money and having to do things over. For Lucy Shelby at RCAC in Portland, having a well rounded understanding about the cultures of her clients can help build stronger relationships and give more loans to communities for building new affordable housing. She says, “I want to understand how people think and feel before we talk about filling housing needs or building leadership capacity.
Organizations need to assess how they are presently doing
in terms of recruitment and retention and promotion
Assess the cultural makeup of your clients and your employees. Do you have employees that reflect your client base? Where are the gaps that need to be filled? It’s important to develop an assessment to get this information. A combination of written surveys, focus groups and interviews will provide that. You’ll find out what your employees are thinking and what issues you may not be aware of. Employees and managers together can develop ideas to make an organization more effective. Victoire Chochezi of RCAC in Sacramento, CA talks about the importance of diversity in thinking styles and communication. She states, “It’s good to do assessments. Like minds tend to gravitate toward like minds and not work as much with other people who do not think like them. We always need to branch out and work with people who are from different backgrounds and have different working and thinking styles.”
After you do an assessment develop a plan to address issues and create a plan to support diversity. Are you lacking diversity at the employee level, management, or board of directors? Some organizations have been able to recruit diverse employees but their executive leadership is exactly alike in terms of race, age gender, geographic background or education. If you always recruit from the same sources you will always get the same people. Talk to other companies that have successfully recruited and maintained a diverse workforce. Find out how they get their candidates and what they have done to create a more inclusive environment. According to Chochezi, “when people feel included, they are more likely to give appropriate input. They still feel encouraged even if their ideas are not accepted each time.”
Provide appropriate training
Even if you are diverse, in terms of demographics, it’s necessary to train people to understand each other and the communities you serve. Just having people who are different from each other is not enough. A good training program helps people work better together and utilize each other’s strengths. Depending on the size of your organization you might want to form a diversity council to champion your diversity initiative, deal with issues and build a stronger team.
Answer
Diversity can be defined as people coming together from different races, nationalities, religions and sexes to form a group, organization or community. A diverse organization is one that values the difference in people. It is one that recognizes that people with different backgrounds, skills, attitudes and experiences bring fresh ideas and perceptions. Diverse organizations encourage and harness these differences to make their services relevant and approachable. Diverse organizations draw upon the widest possible range of views and experiences so it can listen to and meet the changing needs of its users. The encouragement of diversity benefits society.
In society today, most people view diversity as a good thing because it gives people the chance to experience different things outside of what they are normally accustomed to. Diversity in America is openly viewed as a beneficial bacterium, so many backgrounds and not knowing which ones are good and which ones are bad.
Diversity as a wide component is a tricky thing to use and understand because it has both negative and positive effects on society such as education, violence and employment. People have to dig deep to figure out what exactly the effect will be in the end and be patient to wait and see.
Studies show that the lack of cohesion between races, sexes and cultures is due to mistrust, stereotyping, and more within-culture conversation and language problems. When these problems are not paid attention to it may lead to an inability to endorse ideas, the inability to gain agreement on decisions, and inability to take united action. In the educational system it is very important that there is a wide array of diverse groups in the classroom, “It is important to have a diverse student body, not only to create a realistic setting but also to encourage people to grow outside their boundaries and learn something new about a culture they may not be familiar with.” (Pendulum 1). By accomplishing this in the classroom you can avoid child unawareness and actually enlighten them about other things that go on around them with people they may be friends with or know. Another factor in a less diverse student population is bullying. Students who are different are often targets for bullying. Often when people lack knowledge of things that they are not accustomed to they are quick to judge or stereotype and make ignorant decisions. “Diversity is a positive thing, not something to fear” (Pendulum 1).
The different aspects of diversity are very important. “People of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds have been an integral part of Penn State School of Nursing for many years” (“Our History of Diversity” 1). From so small to something bigger, diversity plays a major role everywhere every day. In some colleges diversity has been around for many years regardless of what social, racial and ethnic differences there were. “Children exposed to diverse cultures in the classroom learn to understand different points of view, which is an important part of education” (Canadian Teachers 1). This can sum up why diversity in the classroom is such an important part of a child’s development, by the child being exposed to diverse cultures the child can get a better understanding of why the child dresses this way, acts that way or can’t eat this or that. “The result is that children will question their own beliefs and understand how their own culture influences the way they see the world” (Canadian Teacher 1).
Diversity can create curiosity. By being exposed to different people and cultures, a student may want to learn more about a particular group which can give them insight into how and why things work as they do and possibly a way to change them for the better.